Beyond Black and White

Charleston: A Good Lie

Local sci-fi writer Leah Rhyne spent the last year and a half imagining how she would stay alive during the zombie apocalypse while writing her newest book, Undead America: Zombie Days, Campfire Nights. Set in the Southeastern U.S., the story follows the lives of three separate characters as they try to survive the attacks of their undead — and living — countrymen and women.

But Rhyne takes a different approach to this familiar theme, once she calls “less zombies, more apocalypse.” In writing about humanity in a post-humanist setting, she says that she that she kept the Holocaust in mind, focusing on people’s atrocities to one another rather than on just fighting off zombies. “After a while, the zombies actually become the backdrop to the story while the people who are trying to stay alive, they are the real threats,” says Rhyne.

The book was released on Halloween and (for now at least) will only be sold as an e-book on Rhyne’s website, leahrhyne.com.